


try to empty out the ocean with a spoon

by skai_heda



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Childhood Friends, Existential Crisis, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Hurt, Idiots in Love, Modern Setting Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Slow Burn Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Suicidal Thoughts, and its painful, but it gets better, i think, its awkward, like a shit ton of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-12-28 21:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skai_heda/pseuds/skai_heda
Summary: "Do you want to tell me what's going on?" Bellamy asks, his voice almost too soft for her to hear."You already know what's going on," she spits, the rough edge of the seatbelt digging sharply into her palms. She feels wobbly and sick, and frankly, she wishes she could've stayed in the ICU longer, no matter how much she hates the bright lights and the sterile halls."Clarke—""No one came back for me," she whispers, her voice shaking and cracking."I did," he tells her. "I came back."the aftermath of a car crash leaves clarke griffin completely at odds with everyone and everything. except bellamy.





	1. louisville, kentucky

**Author's Note:**

> uber doesn't exist because i need this work to be perfect okay  
also yes i should be updating the black-ops syndicate but like... whatever?????????

This is not the situation Clarke imagines herself being in on October 23rd.

Or maybe 24th. She hasn't checked the time.

Or maybe it doesn't even matter, because maybe she's dead.

It doesn't matter.

* * *

**part one**

* * *

When Clarke Griffin walks out of her childhood home on October 23rd, it is snowing. 

_I should've worn a heavier jacket._

The snow beats at her face like a million tiny needles of ice, cold to the point where it seems to be penetrating her skin, soaking into her bones.

_I should've worn a heavier jacket._

Maybe it's the anger and the hate shooting through her bloodstream that erases the possibility of conscious thought, erases any coherent message beyond—

_I should've worn a heavier jacket._

The seat of the car is cold, too cold. The steering wheel is colder. She thinks she'll throw up, or scream, or cry, or all three of those. But somewhere, like a backup generator, a sliver of common sense is floating hazily in her brain, telling her to stop, to go back inside, to try and make Mom understand that you're trying, that you're alone—

Clarke ignores it, starting the car. Her eyes are watering, and she knows she can't drive now, knows that she shouldn't. But she will. She'll drive forever and she won't stop.

* * *

Her mom calls her at least six times by the time she makes it to where it happens.

Clarke doesn't pick up a single time. She can't. She's cold, and she's numb, and she—

_(should've worn a heavier jacket)_

—she doesn't want to talk to her mother. Not yet. Not now.

The thing about accidents is that one never really registers it at the moment it happens. It's always a delayed realization, a conclusion after your mind scrambles for something else, _anything else._

About sixty-eight seconds after the sixth missed call from her mother, Clarke feels cold.

The windows are open—no, there aren't any windows. It's just shards of glass and the cold air holding her tight and squeezing her throat.

But she realizes it's the seatbelt that squeezes her throat, and the knives of pain attacking her body are not from the cold. The viscous liquid that she feels everywhere on her body is not melted snow. 

Clarke chooses not to consider what else it could be.

She only feels cold.

_I should've worn a heavier jacket._

* * *

Linear skull fractures, a shattered leg, bruised ribs, broken arms, glass embedded everywhere in her body.

She won't run again. Probably.

_Running is all I know._

Clarke's been in the ICU before, but never in the beds, never on the other end of the pitying looks and the gentle hands.

She waits, days, weeks.

* * *

"Where's my mother?" she finally brings herself to ask.

Doctor Trikru's throat bobs as she looks at Clarke. "She's not here."

"Did she ever even come here?" Clarke whispers. "Ever?"

"No."

Clarke doesn't speak for a long time.

* * *

"Do you have anywhere to go?" Doctor Trikru finally asks. 

"Indra," the nurse behind her says softly. "She's—"

"I was just visiting," Clarke murmurs. 

Indra stares at her for a long time.

"It was a rental car," Clarke finally says.

"Well, other than your family, is there anyone else who can come and get you?"

Clarke sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tries to remember a number, an email, anything, anyone.

_I have no one._

"Uh, Octavia Blake," she blurts. "It's uh, I don't know if it's the right number—"

Indra passes Clarke her phone, which had somehow survived the crash. "I think you should make a call."

* * *

Six years ago, Octavia Blake had been a good friend of hers. That was, before Clarke gathered everything into neat boxes and took her whole life to California.

She sits now with one hand resting on her crutches and the other hand holding her cracked phone to her ear. The line keeps ringing, and Clarke realizes that no one is going to answer.

But someone does answer.

It's a male voice instead of a female's and for one terrifying second Clarke thinks that she called the wrong number.

_"Hello?"_

She pauses, deciding whether she should answer or not. But the voice is familiar to her, vaguely, and after the man on the other side says hello a second time, she realizes.

"I—Bellamy?" Clarke asks, her voice shaking. 

There's a long pause.

_"Clarke?"_

"Hey," she says quietly. "I thought—I thought this was Octavia's number."

_"It was."_

He doesn't elaborate.

Clarke feels astronomically strange right now, to be talking to the older brother of her former friend. More importantly, she's talking to her own former best friend. The one she left behind in a desperate attempt to escape her past.

"Bellamy, I, uh. I need a favor."

_"I'm busy."_

"I don't have any other option," she says quietly.

_"Clarke, what's going on?"_

"I need you to pick me up from Arkadia General Hospital," she murmurs.

_"Why, what's wrong?"_

"Please, Bellamy. I need—"

She stops then, because suddenly she's overcome with the urge to cry.

"Can you just get here? As soon as possible?"

The resulting silence is long enough for her to think he hung up. 

_Why wouldn't he?_

_I left him._

_"Clarke, what happened?"_

"I was—I was in an accident," she starts, tears welling in her eyes. "And I just—I need someone to get me out of here. I've been discharged."

_"What about your mom?"_

"Bellamy, _please," _she murmurs, holding back a sniffle.

Clarke hears him sigh on the other end. _"Okay. Just give me like, twenty minutes, okay?"_

* * *

He's exactly the way Clarke remembers him.

He's leaning against his car, his breath making small puffs of air in front of him, a dark curl falling into his eyes. He stands out against the fine white dusting of snow on top of everything else.

And when she finally hobbles over to him, he doesn't even hesitate to help her into the passenger seat before he grabs her crutches and moves to put them in the backseat.

It's simple. Easy. Effortless.

It _hurts._

* * *

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" Bellamy asks, his voice almost too soft for her to hear.

"You already know what's going on," she spits, the rough edge of the seatbelt digging sharply into her palms. She feels wobbly and sick, and frankly, she wishes she could've stayed in the ICU longer, no matter how much she hates the bright lights and the sterile halls.

"Clarke—"

"No one came back for me," she whispers, her voice shaking and cracking.

"I did," he tells her. "I came back."

"Why?" she asks. "I left you. I left everyone."

"Clarke, I won't pretend that I wasn't upset about that, but it's been six years. I've—I forgave you."

Clarke turns in her seat to face him. "I didn't."

Bellamy glances at her, briefly, before he turns his eyes back to the road. "Why didn't your mom pick you up?"

"Because she doesn't care about me," Clarke says. "Because she abandoned me."

"I'm sure that's not—"

"I waited in the ICU and she never came. She didn't call the hospital, not even to check on me. And they told me that she was notified of the accident."

Bellamy lets out a low whistle. "My god, Clarke. I'm so sorry."

"It's not really anything new," Clarke mumbles, looking down at her lap. 

"So what do you want to do about it?" Bellamy asks.

She stares out the window for a long time. "I don't know."

* * *

Clarke stares blankly at Bellamy's computer, at the numbers and the words that should mean something to her but don't.

It's the most reasonable thing to do, but something about just booking a flight back to Los Angeles doesn't sit well with her.

"You still hate coffee?" Bellamy asks from somewhere in the kitchen in his apartment.

"Yeah," Clarke sighs, leaning back. Her whole body aches every minute she stays awake, and somehow in her dreams, too.

She feels Bellamy's presence like a touch when he comes to stand behind her.

"Why aren't you booking the flight?" he asks softly. "Don't you want to leave?"

"God, yeah," she says fervently, running her hands through her hair. "I want to leave and I never want to come back. But it just—it seems too simple. To buy a ticket and just disappear. Again."

Bellamy doesn't respond to that, but he stays. And that has to count for something.

But whereas Clarke should feel relieved that she has at least some support, she only feels—

_(cold)_

—she only feels empty.

"What happened to Octavia?" she finally asks.

"Octavia's alive," Bellamy says, and they leave it at that.

* * *

They fall into the routine easily—Bellamy goes to Clarke's hotel, picks her up, she spends all day at his apartment, and then he takes her back. There's a cold sort of peace between them at the moment. Bellamy seemed sincere about not holding a grudge because of her abrupt departure from his life six years ago, but being around him makes Clarke feel immense guilt in a way she hasn't since when she still lived with her mom.

But he's the only person she can stand to be around—and for the first time in a long time, she doesn't want to be alone.

It sounds like a compromise, but it's not. She doesn't know what she wants.

_I just want it to be over._

"Bellamy," she says on the fifth day, "what have you been doing these past six years?"

He looks over at her. "Why do you care?"

The words hit like a sucker punch, and Clarke's momentarily surprised. She's never really been hurt by passive aggression. But ever since she came out of the ICU, everything seems dangerously off balance, tilted too far to the wrong side.

"I'm sorry," he says after a minute.

"I deserved it," Clarke replies quietly.

"No, you didn't."

Clarke grabs her shirt to stop her hand from shaking. It's a new development—and one she hates.

"You do owe me an explanation, though," Bellamy murmurs. "As to why you left."

Clarke slowly turns to face him. "You know things haven't been great with my mom."

"Yeah."

"And Wells died."

"Yeah."

"And Dad."

"Yes."

"And then the thing with Finn—"

"Oh, yeah."

"And then he—him getting cancer."

"Yeah."

"I couldn't be happy here, Bellamy. I would never, ever be happy here," she sighs, covering her face with her hands. 

"Were you happy there? In California?"

"I don't know," she admits. "But I was better. Less angry, less anxious, less unstable."

"Maybe you can be happy here again," Bellamy says, his voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe—"

"I won't."

"You're not giving it a chance—"

_"I feel SICK here!" _she exclaims suddenly, making Bellamy jump a little. "I am _dying _here. In more ways than one. I wasn't happy here, and I never will be, and the only _fucking _reason I'm not leaving is that I feel guilty for doing that before. Because that's all there is here. _Guilt. _I'm _sorry, _okay. I'm sorry for leaving you and I'm sorry for being a burden on you—"

"Clarke, you have to breathe," Bellamy says tentatively, reaching out, but Clarke recoils from his advances.

"I don't," she hisses. "I hate this place, and I was _trying, _okay? I was trying to fix things with my mom, but I know. I know that not a single _fucking _person in this godforsaken town gives a shit about me," she says, and Clarke can feel her heart rate rocketing up to heights it has never gone before. She's vaguely aware that she's standing, vaguely aware of the fact that it feels like her leg is being hacked off, vaguely aware of the fact that everything is blurry and she can't see and she's fucking _cold—_

The floor rushes towards her, but then firm hands wrap around her biceps and hold her up, keep her from sinking into the beige carpet in the apartment.

"Clarke," she hears Bellamy say, and she's never heard him sound so heartbroken, so helpless, not even during the times he'd snuck into her house, his face a galaxy of bruises and cuts he bore because of his sister.

"I want to die," she murmurs. 

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do. I don't have anyone."

"That's not true."

"I'm alone," she whispers, and though it's not a new thought, it seems to hit her with a new sense of importance, a greater magnitude.

There are no more words after that—it is just the two of them as they watch Clarke's tears start to darken the carpet in almost perfectly circular little dots.

* * *

"You need to figure out what you want to do."

"I don't know," Clarke murmurs, propping her crutches up against Bellamy's kitchen counter before reaching up into the overhead cabinet to extract two plates. "I'm going home."

"Home," Bellamy muses, staring blankly into the frying pan, the mouth-watering smell of his cooking wrapping Clarke in a familiar embrace. "Wasn't this home, once?"

"I don't know. Maybe," she murmurs.

"Clarke—"

Her phone buzzes, and she leans away from the counter to grab it. It's only one message.

> **Mom**
> 
> where are you?

"I have to leave," Clarke breathes, still holding her phone. "I have to leave now."

Bellamy straightens. "Like, right this instant?"

Clarke doesn't answer—but in her hurry to get out of the apartment, she forgets to grab her crutches and she collapses halfway to the door, Bellamy just barely catching her.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, _slow down—**" **_he splutters, but Clarke wrenches herself out of his grip and half crawls to where her crutches are, grabbing them tightly. She even makes it out of the door and halfway down the hall before Bellamy grabs her shoulders from behind and moves to plant himself in front of her.

"What the hell is even your plan here?" he snaps in disbelief. "You're gonna go out there with a barely healed leg and _drive_ all the way to Los Angeles?"

"I will do _anything _if it means I don't have to be stuck here!" she shoots back. "I _will _drive all the way to California, and I'm _never_ coming back here ever again!"

"You weren't like this," Bellamy says slowly, after a minute of silence. "You were never this angry."

"Yes, I was," she says shakily. "Yes, I was."

Bellamy's throat bobs and his jaw stiffens as he comes to an apparent decision. "Okay. I'm driving you to California."

It takes Clarke a minute to register his words. "What?"

She's alarmed to look up and see his face set with anger. "You wanted to leave, didn't you?" he asks, almost scornfully. "See, at least _I _still care about you, and I have to see this through. So I'm going to take you to California, and then after that I'm done. You never have to come back and _I _never have to see _you _again."

"Bellamy—" she gasps.

"Shut up," Bellamy hisses, turning around to walk back to his apartment. Any other day, Clarke would've punched him, or said something in an equally rude tone, but all she can do is hobble along behind him. She slams the door behind her and watches as Bellamy reaches for the sweater hanging on the back of the nearby chair, and stalks into his room.

He comes out a few minutes later with a small suitcase, still zipping the top with one hand.

"Bellamy," Clarke says. "Bellamy, _stop."_

_"Why _are you complaining?" he asks, setting the suitcase down and crossing his arms. "Is this _not _what you wanted?"

"Bellamy, please," she murmurs. "You _don't _have to do this."

"Yes, I do," he says, and that's how the end begins.

* * *

Three hours and forty-four minutes to Louisville, Kentucky.

The numbers seem to flash in front of her eyes, but in reality, they are in small green digits displayed on Bellamy's phone.

She's checked out of the hotel, and she's got both her things and Bellamy's things packed in the trunk of his car. He's silent, and keeps his eyes forward, watching the sun dip towards the west. It's 5:52 in the evening, and even Clarke just watches as the sky gets darker.

She feels jittery and nervous, and she can almost feel her stomach turn as if she's still in the car that crashed, as this very car is turning just the way hers did.

But it doesn't.

Clarke's always hated being in a car without music—the silence seems to physically attack her, pushing and closing in on her until she doesn't have any air left. But she doesn't utter a word, and neither does Bellamy.

And that's how three hours and forty-four minutes pass.

* * *

"I'm turning the lights off."

"Okay," she murmurs.

The hotel room is plunged into darkness, but Clarke doesn't go to sleep. And, judging by the irregularity of his breath, neither does Bellamy.

She turns around to face his bed, and sees that he's already facing her, his eyes open as he fiddles absentmindedly with a loose thread on his shirt, as she can see in the dim moonlight.

"Bellamy," she whispers into the darkness.

"It's too late to go back, if that's what you're wondering," he says, but his voice is not sharp, nor is it weighed down with emotion. 

"Do you think she loves me?" Clarke asks quietly. "My mom?"

"I think all parents have to love their kids," Bellamy murmurs.

"Well, if that's the case, I think she only loves me for the sake of loving your child," she says.

"I'm sure she genuinely loves you, Clarke."

This was one of the million little things that made this Bellamy different from the one she knew before, because Bellamy before would never tell her what he thought she wanted to hear_**. **_He would always be honest.

But this Bellamy is not her Bellamy, and this Clarke is not his Clarke. They are not the people they used to be, nor will they ever be again.

"If that was true, she would've come back," she says, before turning back around and shutting her eyes. She knows she must've done something to deserve this, knows that there was some order to the way everything turned out. Maybe it was the fact that she left in the first place, maybe all the people she shut out and hurt. All of it had to be connected somehow, because it was too painful for her to think of the alternative; it was too painful to to consider that all of this was just the way it was, and that the universe had simply been cruel to her for no reason at all.


	2. st. louis, missouri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of a short chapter, but please enjoy!

She wakes up in the morning with her mouth feeling like it's full of cotton, and with the dust of dried tears clamping her eyes shut.

_You won't cry. Not anymore._

She makes the promise to herself with a vehemence that doesn't match the drowsy ignorance of six in the morning, but it doesn't matter to her.

Clarke isn't the only one awake at six am; when she turns her head, she sees Bellamy lying in bed, staring straight up with his eyes wide open and his lips slightly parted, his dark curls spilling over the pillows. He looks sad, lost, like he's missing something he knows he'll never get back.

She shakes her head a little to herself, chiding herself for the overanalysis. The movement makes her hair rub loudly against the shitty pillow, and Bellamy turns his head so fast that Clarke thinks he might've just gotten a crick in his neck.

"You're awake," he says softly, any hint of yesterday's anger gone from his voice.

"Surprise," she says a little dryly, and Bellamy huffs out a laugh as he extricates himself from the sheets.

He stands in front of her bed and stretches, his eyes shutting tightly as he raises his arms above his head and links his fingers together. To Clarke, it's a startlingly familiar sight, one she'd see whenever she slept over with Octavia.

"So, breakfast?" he says, and Clarke finds herself jarred by the flippancy in his voice, how normal this situation seems to him. As if his friends are always showing up asking him to cart them off to the other side of the country.

But she doesn't, she _can't _bring herself to say anything about it, so she just nods, still staring blankly in front of her bed long after Bellamy heads into the small bathroom to get ready for the day.

* * *

Heavy silence hangs over the two of them after breakfast, though Clarke suspects that she's the source of the tension. It feels good to have eaten after almost twenty hours without food, but that soon turns into the nausea that hangs about her.

"Clarke," Bellamy says quietly, when they've been driving west for about forty minutes in silence. "You're going to _have _to say something."

"Why?" she asks, her voice rough with disuse.

"Maybe, I don't know, because I'm your best friend?" he asks, glancing sideways for half a second before sliding his gaze back onto the road.

"You _were _my best friend," Clarke murmurs pointedly. "Whatever we are, we're not what we used to be."

"And whose fault is that?" he asks, though there's no anger, no malice in his tone. "You left me. And still I'm trying. Doesn't that count for something in that head of yours, Clarke?"

She gets the vague feeling that Bellamy wanted to say something rude before 'head' but she chooses to ignore it. They find themselves stuck in bumper to bumper traffic a few minutes later, prompting the car to come to a complete halt. 

Bellamy turns his head to her and reaches out with his hand, a curl falling in his eye. Clarke almost brushes it away, but all she does is stare blankly at his hand.

"Let's start over," Bellamy murmurs, a touch of desperation among the sincerity of his voice. "Please."

"I don't know how," she sighs, looking back to face the road ahead.

She hears him huff, but it's more amused than annoyed. "I'm Bellamy. Nice to meet you."

"That is absolutely _not _how we met," Clarke protests.

_"Clarke." _

"Fine," she murmurs, turning in her seat before reaching out to shake Bellamy's hand. She feels a jolt of warmth begin to pulse at every point of contact between them, a degree of heat for every freckle that encompasses her fingers. "I'm Clarke."

* * *

> **ark mix!!! bellamy please don't listen to these while you're doing anything dumb like making out with**...
> 
> _Created by **oblakeo **_
> 
> **Now Playing: Fade Away—Logic**

"Octavia made that?" Clarke asks, gesturing at the Spotify playlist displayed on Bellamy's phone. His hands tense on the wheel, for such a short amount of time that she almost doesn't notice it.

"Yeah," he says finally, the word escaping on a sigh. In some other world, Clarke would've pushed him on it, but she nods. "Cool. She has good taste in songs."

Bellamy bursts out laughing, to the point where Clarke has to scream at him to keep his eyes open while he's driving.

"Okay, okay, sorry," he says, a grin still etched deep into his face.

"What the _hell _is so funny?" Clarke asks, as the song switches to another one. 

"You remember what Octavia used to listen to when she was a teenager?" Bellamy asks softly.

"Oh, _god, _don't even remind me," Clarke groans. "Up until she turned seventeen all she listened to was—"

"The most _stupid _songs ever," Bellamy sighs.

"I think you just insulted millions of teenage girls."

"Clarke, if I had to listen to _Thinking Out Loud _one more damn time—"

"Or Ariana Grande—"

"Clarke, her songs are actually _okay—"_

"Or _We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together—"_

"Oh, _ew. _Also Shawn Mendes."

"Good fucking _god, _Bellamy, she played his songs _all _the time!"

"But hey," he says finally. "At least this playlist is good."

They settle back into a silence much more comfortable than all the previous ones since he picked her up from the hospital, and Clarke just has to ask after a bit—

"How do you know where you're going?"

Bellamy doesn't answer for a long time. By Clarke's estimate, it's three hours to St. Louis, and she wonders if Bellamy will be silent that whole time.

"Octavia wanted to go to LA," he murmurs after a while, and she pauses. "She always wanted to get out of Arkadia, go somewhere warm and sunny. So the two of us, we planned the whole thing."

"What happened to Octavia, Bellamy?" Clarke asks.

"Why were you in Arkadia General?"

Clarke scowls at him, and he shrugs. "Come on, Clarke. It's a team effort."

She sighs, and looks away. "There was an accident."

"A car accident," he guesses.

"Yeah."

"All the scars—"

"Glass from the windows."

He lets out a low whistle. "Jesus, Clarke."

"I don't think that's what hurt the most, though," Clarke murmurs. 

"It's that your mom never came back," he says slowly.

"We had a fight, that night," she says with a sigh. "I just—I never imagined it would turn out like _that."_

Bellamy turns to look at her then, long enough for Clarke to snap at him to keep his eyes on the road.

"You shouldn't have had to go through that, Clarke," he sighs. "No one should."

"Well, maybe I did," she counters.

"Clarke—"

"You're right, Bellamy. I _did _leave everyone. And everything. All because of what _I _felt."

"Yeah, but I understand why you did it!" he implores, and this gives her pause.

"What?" she asks slowly.

She sees his throat bob as he swallows. "Octavia left."

Clarke sighs and leans back in her seat. "When?"

"About a week after you did," Bellamy says quietly. "Went to join the armed forces. I never got any word of what happened after that, except for a letter to our apartment thanking Octavia for her service and respecting her choice to leave the Air Force. So that was a small comfort, that she was alive, and out of danger. But she never came back."

She feels a wave of sorrow on his behalf—to have lost so many people in such a short amount of time. Their mom, Aurora, had died just a few months prior to Clarke leaving.

"I'm sorry I left," she mumbles.

"Don't be," he says. "I look at you now and I feel like maybe you needed to get out of there."

"But I left you," she pushes. "When you needed people to stick by you, I left."

"What other choice was there, really?" he asks softly. "Think you and I could've done it? Gotten in a car and escaped to California?"

"You and me? What about Octavia?" Clarke splutters.

"Octavia leaving—I saw it coming for a while," Bellamy babbles, and his tanned cheeks redden. "Forget it. It was a stupid thought—"

"Bellamy."

_"Please, _Clarke."

"It wouldn't have been that bad" is all Clarke says before she stops talking, and she finds herself trying to paint a picture in her head of what it would've been like if they did what Bellamy said. She imagined that he'd get more freckles in the sun, and his skin would be darker, his eyes warmer. Maybe they'd go to the beach together all the time, and maybe his hair would become a hundred shades of gold in the sunset. Maybe they'd grow old together there, her working as a surgeon, him as a teacher. Maybe they'd love each other, and—

Her thoughts come to a screeching halt before coming to circle that one word like vultures around a corpse.

_Love._

_Love._

She swallows.

How could Bellamy ever love her?

* * *

"Do you still like stars?" Bellamy asks her. They've stopped for lunch in St. Louis, and Clarke can see the Gateway Arch in the distance.

She sips her drink. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just remembering it—all those summers where you'd name all the constellations and I'd tell you the stories behind the names."

Clarke almost smiles at the memory, and her mind circles around their fifteenth summer, months before the two of them turned sixteen, with Bellamy's bare arms pillowed under his head as he spoke of gods and goddesses, the little breathless laugh of his when Clarke would descend into some tangent about the starlight. She remembers that it was the first summer where she was afraid to touch Bellamy—afraid to experience the strange, unfamiliar sensations that spiraled through her body.

"I haven't looked at the stars in a long time," she admits. There really was not much of an opportunity in Los Angeles, with the city lights blotting out the ones from above. Not like the small town of Arkadia.

Bellamy glances out the window and scowls at the snow falling outside, and Clarke takes this as an opportunity to trace his profile with her eyes, to imagine the colors she'd use to paint him.

_Bellamy..._

She blinks and turns her head to the snow.

* * *

> **Now Playing: We Never Change—Coldplay**

_"I wanna live life, and be good to you."_

_What now? _Clarke asks herself. _What happens when we get to California?_

She supposes she'll go back to her apartment, get back to her job in the hospital. She'll brush off the questions about why she's back from her so-called vacation early, and she'll get back to saving lives, stitching people back together, picking up broken pieces and putting them together.

_And Bellamy?_

She almost laughs to herself in that car, trying to make sense of the mess she's fallen into. She had everything under control, meticulous plans for her future. Saving lives, and when she had enough money, she'd open her own art gallery. Maybe. She'd grow old in the California sun, far away from the nightmare of her old life.

She'd keep her dad's watch on the shelf in her bedroom, maybe in a glass case so no one would ever have to touch it again, but so it would always be close to her. She'd forget everything about West Virginia, she'd change—

_"We never change, do we? We never learn, do we?"_

It would've been easy there, with the friends at the hospital, with no worry except about the next patient. No worry, except what color she was going to run out of soon. But here she is, all the way on the other side of the country, too close to the house she lived in as a child, too far away from home, even though she'd not sure where that is. She's reacquainted with the sensation of snow in her hair instead of relishing the sensation of sand between her toes. The sky outside is grey and cold, nothing like the clear blue back in LA.

And then there's Bellamy, Bellamy, who changes everything, who sends everything spiraling. Bellamy with his familiar eyes and his familiar hair and his familiar voice, Bellamy with his life and Clarke with hers. It's impossible.

But it's happening anyway.

_What's the plan here?_

She decides that maybe there was some good part of coming back to Arkadia, and that was Bellamy. She knows next to nothing about him now, but they're working towards what they used to be. Maybe they'll never get there, but they're on their way.

And that has to count for something, doesn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys i KNOW what spotify looks like ok don't come at me with the technicalities  
also with the conversation about octavia's music taste just ignore the timeline and release dates of those songs lmao


	3. tulsa, oklahoma

"This is a longer drive," Bellamy says conversationally. It brings Clarke out of her reverie, and she looks up to gaze sleepily at him. 

"How long?" she asks. "And where?"

"Tulsa. Five hours and fifty-one minutes. We'll get there at night."

She finds herself wondering that it would be easy to reach over and put her hand on top of his on the wheel, if only just to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her palm. 

There are vague memories swimming hazily beneath the surface of her mind, memories she tried hard to blot out. Bellamy with his arms around her, Bellamy with his hands warm against her back, Bellamy, Bellamy, _Bellamy—_

She swallows. _Best if you don't think about it. Not now. Not ever._

"You okay?" he asks without glancing at her. "You look a little sick."

"I can drive," she says suddenly. "You realize that, right? You don't have to drive the whole way."

He laughs mirthlessly. "You aren't driving with that leg, Clarke."

"Bellamy—"

"You should be going to see a physical therapist, not stuck in a car for hours and hours. But that's what we're doing anyway, and the least I could do for you is make sure you don't drive. Okay?"

Clarke scowls. "You're too nice, Bellamy."

"Would you rather have me be not nice?" he asks.

She turns away. "Maybe."

"Clarke, I'm not gonna argue about what you do or don't deserve." He sounds tired, and Clarke decides not to push it.

"Sorry," she mumbles. "I'm just—"

"I know," Bellamy sighs. "I know. _I'm _sorry. I don't know how you feel right now."

Almost against her will, Clarke does reach across the space between them to touch his hand. "You care about me. I think. I hope. That's what matters to me."

"I do care," he murmurs, in a soft voice, and it brings words to the tip of Clarke's tongue, words she'd neversay out loud. 

* * *

_"Clarke. Clarke, please, just look at me."_

_"He's gone," she said softly. "He is gone. First dad. And now Wells is gone."_

_"Clarke—"_

_"Who's gonna be there for me now?" she asked him. "Nobody cares now."_

_"I do," Bellamy implored, touching his forehead to hers. It was too cold for her to be bothered or unnerved by it. "I care."_

_"Bellamy—"  
_

_"I do care," he murmured in her ear. "Promise."_

* * *

> **Now Playing: Let Me Down Gently—La Roux**

"Do you still sing?" Bellamy asks, and Clarke turns her face towards the window, suppressing a smile. "You wouldn't want to hear," she replies.

"Come _on," _he implores. "You were so good at singing."

"You were better."

"Clarke, I'm not the one who was in _choir."_

"Listen, Bellamy," she starts, turning back to him with a grin. "I _hated _that. All of them were _insufferable. _'Look at me, look at me, I should be leader because I can sing C sharp—'"

He bursts out laughing, eyes still on the road. "God, Clarke. You did not just reference Lord of The Flies."

"Did too. And I'm pretty sure half of them _can't _sing C sharp," she mutters, and Bellamy laughs again.

"Can you?" he asks. "Sing C sharp, I mean."

"Don't insult me."

"If I recall, Clarke, you were the one insisting that you couldn't sing as well as you used to," he says, smirking at her. That smirk is burned into her brain, and her lips sting involuntarily.

_No. Don't. Don't you dare._

Bellamy's eyebrows also knit together, as if he too is remembering that hot August evening, the smell of birthday candles still hanging in the air.

"I haven't sung in a long time," she finally admits, if only just to cut through the thick haze of the past. "And I don't want to."

"So what _do _you do?"

"I'm a surgeon," she says.

Bellamy's eyes practically pop out of his head. "Seriously? Actually?"

"Bellamy."

"No, it's just—that's _really _cool, Clarke. I'm really happy for you."

"Thank you," Clarke says, and a smile starts to tug at the corners of her mouth.

But at the same time, she feels a small tug in the pit of her stomach, reminding her just how far away they are.

_You don't know me. I don't know you._

She leans back in her seat. "What do you do?" she asks.

"Teacher," he says. "Well, still kind of in college. I don't know."

"Are you happy?" she asks in a small voice, then regrets it. Maybe he's been alone these past few years—

"I guess. For stretches of time," he admits. "You know how I said I was never going to get over Gina?"

He laughs a little at that, and a dull ache starts up in Clarke's chest. She remembers Gina, who had died in a car accident, who had the fate that Clarke deserved. They were young, then, but at the time Clarke had believed it would leave a hole in Bellamy that would never be mended, no matter how large or small it was.

She remembers feeling that strange ache then, too, watching Bellamy sit hunched over his desk, his shoulders shaking with tears. Sixteen was a hard year.

"Yeah, I remember," she says finally.

"And do you remember Echo?"

Echo. Clarke had never paid much attention to her, didn't know much about her except the fact that Echo had been in their grade at high school.

"Yeah," she mutters. "Her."

"Well, she and I, well..." Bellamy trails off, suddenly sounding flustered. Clarke feels a strong wave of hate for Echo, which she quickly pushes down. _You__ don't know her._

_Because you weren't here._

"So are you guys still a thing?" she asks.

"No," he sighs. "Uh, no. We just—I don't know. It didn't work out the way either of us wanted it to."

"Oh," Clarke says.

"What about you?" he asks, and she feels her blood run cold as she revisits one of the few bad memories of California.

* * *

_"Dr. Griffin, you can't be on this one."_

_"Emma," Clarke said. "Emma, please. It's _Lexa. _She's my—"_

She's my everything and I can't lose her, not like I lost Finn and Wells—

_"And that's exactly why you can't be operating on her, Clarke!" Dr. Emma Wellhaven implored. "Just think about it, Clarke. Do you think you're in any position to be operating on _anyone _right now?"_

_"Emma," she repeated uselessly, but she saw the point._

_"Clarke, just go home, okay?" Emma told her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "I'll call you when it's over, and you can talk to Lexa."_

_Clarke waited a second before nodding slowly. "Okay. Okay."_

* * *

_Six hours. _

_"I'm so sorry, Clarke."_

_Lexa wasn't supposed to be there. Lexa was supposed to be home, not going out and getting shot._

_It wasn't fair._

_"Clarke?" Emma asked softly. "Clarke—"_

_"First responders never rest," she whispers. Something Lexa had told her maybe a million times._

_Emma looks confused, but decides not to pursue it._

_"I'm going home," Clarke whispered, standing up. "I'll be back on Monday."_

_"Clarke, you don't have to," Emma assured her. "You can take some time off—"_

_The door of Dr. Wellhaven's office fell shut with a decisive click._

* * *

"Oh," Bellamy murmured. "Clarke, I am so sorry."

"Don't say that," Clarke snaps. "I've gotten tired of hearing that.

_"Clarke."_

There's an ominous twist in her gut, and she closes her eyes.

"How long ago was that?" he asks in a small voice.

"Four years ago," she answers.

The music swells, and she looks away. Maybe Lexa was to her what Gina was to Bellamy. She's not sure it even matters anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so.... who wants the playlist?  
also sorry this one is so short!!! i love you!!!  
and sorry i haven't updated in a while i've been dummy sick and shit

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and kudos i'm desperate and i love you guys thanks


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